How to use Nutrition to Support Fertility

The Nutritional Therapy Association has identified 6 pieces of nutrition that they consider to be foundational for optimal health.

When you dig into each foundation, you begin to understand why they are absolutely key to your health, hormones & fertility. Each foundation affects your body holistically. This means there is not necessarily an “easy fix” or “quick fix” to end your experience with infertility. However, there are simple, intuitive adjustments that will improve more than your hormonal balance and chance of a successful pregnancy. When you make these adjustments, you can improve your energy, mood, physical state, and those of your friends and families as well.

“Hormones are your body’s chemical messengers. They travel in your bloodstream to tissues or organs.” -U.S. National Library of Medicine

If you have much experience with fertility testing, or miscarrying, or even reading the back of an at-home pregn

ancy test, you are probably familiar with the term hormones. Each of the six Nutritional Foundations will affect your hormones, either directly, or indirectly.

The first foundation, “Properly Prepared, Nutrient Dense Diet” will empower you to remove additional hormones, those found in poorly sourced animals and animal by-products, out of your diet. Protein helps to create tissues, and is an essential building block of enzymes, antibodies, hemoglobin, and peptide hormones. (Nutritional Therapy Association [NTA], 2020) When shopping for your meats and animal by-products, look for pasture-raised, grass-fed & finished choices. This blog post goes more in-depth on how to source the most nutrient-dense meats.

To source the most nutritional produce, choose products with the label “certified organic,” which indicates that there were no synthetic fertilizers/pesticides, no antibiotics/hormones, & No GMOs used. Your produce will provide you with a variety of vitamins and minerals to support your fertility, including Vitamins A, B3, & B5, which play a big role in making adrenal hormones. (NTA, 2020) When you go to the store, consider would my ancestors recognize this as food?

Again, you’ll see this supports a whole-foods, nutrient-dense diet, because “Nutrients help create the enzymes and hormones we need to function properly.” (NTA, 2020)

Eating a whole foods nutrient-dense diet will mean limiting, or eliminating, processed foods. Your blood sugar regulation, which supports the creation and transportation of hormones, is often thrown out of sync by these processed foods, like Yoplait Yogurt, Coca-Cola, a Frappuccino, juices, bagels, most cereals, Oreos, many protein bars, and much more. These types of foods kick-start a cycle of poor blood sugar regulation that leaves you fatigued, frustrated, and craving more. To add to the dysfunction, this cycle also induces the secretion of the stress hormones, along with insulin, leaving your body in a state of stress. When your pancreas and adrenals are in this mode of stress, they become fatigued, and this cycle can lead to insulin resistance. One of the many effects of insulin resistance is fertility issues. (NTA, 2020)

As touched on in the previous paragraph, your adrenals are in charge of creating a few key hormones for fertility, including sex hormones. (NTA, 2020) Your sex hormones are:

Mineral balance is another nutritional foundation that plays a direct role in supporting these hormones. The mineral Boron amplifies the metabolism of testosterone, estrogen, and DHEA. Iodine is another mineral, which is needed for normal thyroid function. According to the NTA (2020), minerals are key in balancing hormones. The best way to get lots of minerals in your diet is to eat a whole foods diet, with a wide variety of plants.

There are several cofactors which support the proper absorption of minerals: hormonal function, proper hydration, other minerals, Vitamin D, fatty acids for transport, and proper digestion. For example, if your stomach acid is too low, many minerals will not be properly absorbed.

Hydration, another nutritional foundation, has many essential roles in the body, including removing waste, flushing toxins, enabling the digestive process, improves cell to cell communication, supports the body’s natural healing process, and transports nutrients.

Further, people are afraid of good fats, and this is an obstacle to anyone’s optimal health. According to the NTA (2020), “Fatty acids provide the building blocks for cellular membranes and hormones.” Having a good balance of healthy fats in our diets helps us feel fuller longer, creates a protective lining for our organs, sustains energy, absorb certain vitamins, produce some hormones, and improves taste! The key here is to find a balance of healthy fats. Some good sources are avocados, extra-virgin olive oil, nuts & seeds, salmon, animal fats, coconut oil, grass-fed butter, and lard.

Telling you fats are “bad” is not the only unfortunate promotion from food companies. They are also selling you oils marketed as healthy, like vegetable oil, which in-fact contains toxins harmful to your health, including your fertility. Certain oils are expressed at high-heat, and this causes the oil to become rancid, and produce free-radicals.

You can read more about safe and unsafe oils here. This is why your healthy choices like extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and more, must be cold-pressed, or expeller pressed. You also need to take note of what temperatures your oils can be cooked at without losing nutritional value and creating toxins.

Fats are also essential to your fat-soluble vitamins: A, D, E, & K. These need a good source of fat to be absorbed by the body! This is why it’s best to eat foods in whole form; they work together as they should. In “low-fat” processed items, often the fat is taken out, and synthetic vitamin D is pumped in, but your body won’t be able to absorb the Vitamin D without a good source of fat.

Finally, all of these are supported by yet another nutritional foundation, Digestion. Proper digestion begins when you start thinking of your meal. While you are cooking it, your body begins to prepare to break it down in the most efficient, nutritious way. When you are eating in a relaxed state, chewing food thoroughly, you continue to support proper digestion. This means further down the road, you have supported proper acidity in your stomach, which again, is key for proper mineral absorption. Optimal digestion also supports chemical digestion and optimal transfer of nutrients from your digestive system to your cells.

All of the science and information can be overwhelming to try to understand. Simply remind yourself, these are the foundations of nutrition:

A Properly Prepared Nutrient Dense Diet, Digestion, Blood Sugar Regulation (Sugar Handling), Fatty Acids, Mineral Balance, and Hydration.

Also, be comforted knowing that they each support one another. When you eat a properly prepared nutrient dense diet it will enhance your digestion process, which in turn, will support mineral absorption, which enhances the creation of hormones. Additionally, learning to eat and cook with healthy fats will support healthy cell membranes (that get nutrients into the cell and waste out), while also removing harmful toxins (like rancid oils) from your diet, and even helping to regulate blood sugar between meals! Proper blood sugar regulation relies on a balance of fatty acids, along with proper digestion, and supports the healthy creation and release of various hormones. Finally, optimal hydration supports the other foundations by enabling the digestive process, improving transportation of nutrients, removing waste, flushing toxins, supporting the body’s healing process, and so much more.

To choose to empower your body by supporting these 6 foundations, means to choose an unfamiliar path in our modern age. You will sacrifice some small comforts, like processed foods, cheap purchases at the grocery store, and easy trips for fast food. However, you will gain more than insight. You will gain power over your energy, mood, physical state, and fertility.

You have taken your first step on this strange path to a fuller life, and your next option is a leap of faith. You have the science, now put it to work. Click here for a guide to a budget-friendly nutrient dense kitchen clean-out and restock!

Barringer, C., LaFont, V., & McReynolds, K. (2021, January 13). What is the Healthiest Cooking Oil? A List of Safe and Unsafe Oils – NTA. Nutritional Therapy Association. https://nutritionaltherapy.com/what-is-the-healthiest-cooking-oil-a-comprehensive-list-of-safe-and-unsafe-oils-for-cooking/.https://www.thorne.com/take-5-daily/article/meet-the-sex-hormones-and-their-role-in-your-health.

Jacques, J. (2020, October 28). Meet the Sex Hormones and Their Role in Your Health. Thorne. https://www.thorne.com/take-5-daily/article/meet-the-sex-hormones-and-their-role-in-your-health.

Nutritional Therapy Association. (2018). Blood Sugar Student Guide [PDF document]. Retrieved from: https://www.nutritionaltherapyassociation.com

Nutritional Therapy Association. (2018). Basics of Nutrition Student Guide [PDF document]. Retrieved from: https://www.nutritionaltherapyassociation.com

Nutritional Therapy Association. (2018). Mineral Functions, Food Sources & Uses [PDF document]. Retrieved from: https://www.nutritionaltherapyassociation.com

Nutritional Therapy Association. (2018). Mineral Balance Function [PDF document]. Retrieved from: https://www.nutritionaltherapyassociation.com

Nutritional Therapy Association. (2018). The Foundations of Health [PDF document]. Retrieved from: https://www.nutritionaltherapyassociation.com

U.S. National Library of Medicine. (2021, April 23). Hormones | Endocrine Glands. MedlinePlus. https://medlineplus.gov/hormones.html.